


Beautiful Monsters

by LovelySilverwood (Eanna23je)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Game of Thrones Fix-It, Game of Thrones S5 Spoilers, Jon Snow is King in the North, Princess Arya Stark, Spoilers for Book 5 - A Dance with Dragons, Stark Family Reunion(s) (ASoIaF), Warg Arya Stark, Warg Jon Snow, asoiaf spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22357900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eanna23je/pseuds/LovelySilverwood
Summary: It began as a tug at her navel...An itch at the back of his neck...A feeling, like their skins were too small, smooth, fragile.And between them grew a ripe hunger for something they didn’t understand.For Jonrya Week 2020's Day 1 Prompt: Creatures
Relationships: Jon Snow/Arya Stark
Comments: 22
Kudos: 105
Collections: Jonrya Week: January 2020





	1. Wolf's Blood

**Author's Note:**

> “I am surely a creature. For what human has two hearts? But I have two hearts — one is always broken; the other is always whole.”  
> ― C. JoyBell C.

It began as a tug at her navel...

An itch at the back of his neck...

A feeling, like their skins were too small, smooth, fragile. 

And between them grew a ripe hunger for something they didn’t understand.

Jon answered his need by hunting in the Wolfswood with Ghost. Winter was coming, and they’d need extra stores for their larder before the heavy snows blanketed the North.

Arya requested increasingly rarer meats at supper time, hoping no one would notice. Many things she’d done had once inspired ire from her family. Since she’d returned from a past she refused to explain, Arya found most turned a blind eye to yet another oddity. 

Or so she thought. 

Her mistake came the night she whispered to Cook in the kitchens, “Could you send mine up bloody?”

Cook’s family had served the Starks for generations, long before Jon had won back Winterfell from the Boltons. So when the King’s little sister—who’d always remembered their names and asked after their children, even if she was a little odd—came with such an odd request, they did not question it. 

That night, as the royal family sat to sup in the great hall, Arya’s venison was delivered deliciously rare and bloody. The family didn’t look up from their plates, as she’d expected.

With half of their family gone and too many years apart—the remaining Starks largely kept to themselves. Sansa relied upon courtly manners and a veneer of steel, when she wasn’t making eyes with a much subdued Theon Greyjoy, that is. Rickon, on Sansa’s opposite side, was wild from years on the run. Sansa did her best to drag him from Shaggydog’s side in order to eat like a prince instead of with the other wildlings. Down the table to Arya’s right, Bran’s piercing gaze roved the hall, when he wasn’t peering into the distance with an unfeeling smile.

The King sat in what had been Father’s seat. Jon was so changed, Arya scarcely knew how to reach him these days. His thick beard and long hair she might have teased him for, but for the haunting emptiness in his eyes, and the scars his clothes didn’t hide. 

Arya always kept to the seat at Jon’s left, not that he seemed to notice or care. Shame, for he was the only person she _wanted_ to speak with. 

The surviving Starks and their household were changed since the war with the South. They had come together at long last, and not through conventional means. Sansa had brought the might of the Eyrie behind her to help their brother reclaim Winterfell, then insisted upon remaining as its Lady. Theon had come back to them repentant and a changed man thanks to Ramsay Snow, and was for some reason entirely devoted to Sansa. Bran spoke of old gods and ravens and weirwoods until the others learned not to ask questions. As for Rickon, Jon still wouldn’t say what state he found the boy upon reclaiming their home. 

Arya had come back for revenge for Jon’s supposed death, only to find her brother had taken Winterfell back from the Boltons— _i_ _n her name_.

True, she hadn’t exactly expected them to laugh together as they used to. But when she’d finally appeared, Jon had barely looked at her. Still, he seemed determined to keep the expected place for her at his side, be it in the great hall or in the war room. 

_“You’re important to him, Arya,”_ Bran often insisted, _“He died for_ you _.”_ As if that was supposed to explain everything.

Arya’s grip on her knife and fork tightened as the King in the North ate silently at her side. He rarely spoke unless necessary, leaving pretty words for their spymistress sister. Music and laughter from the Northmen and wildlings filled the Great Hall. And for a moment, Arya sought for the courage to speak to him, as they once had. 

_“Why did you die for me?”_ she longed to ask. 

Words had once flowed easily between them. 

Now there was only the scent of blood from the rare venison seeping onto her plate. Arya gave in the moment her bid for control failed. She couldn’t erase her memories, her time as one of the Faceless, or mend the rift with Jon. But she could give in to this _hunger_ that grew with each passing day.

_“The blood of the First Men runs hot in the Starks,”_ Old Nan used to say.

Arya struggled to rely on fork and knife to devour her meal. Her fingers itched to tear into the meat with claws and teeth, like Nymeria. She wanted—no, _needed_ more. 

The bread tasted of ash, better when she used it to soak up the extra blood on her plate. Her gums ached at the taste, and her eyes fluttered shut as a faint moan escaped her bloody lips. She sucked the remaining juices from her fingertips, startled when Sansa hissed, “Arya, _please_ use a napkin, for gods’ sakes!” 

Arya grimaced as she opened her eyes, prepared to snap at her sister. But her words died the moment she turned to find a look on Jon Snow’s face she’d never seen before. 

His gray eyes—Stark eyes—were half-lidded, pupils dilated and his nostrils flared as his chest heaved. He looked...hungry.

Arya’s breath caught in her throat and she blinked once, twice. When Jon continued to stare fixedly at her mouth, Arya reached across the table for his goblet and tipped back its contents. She’d been stealing sips from Jon’s cup since they were children and she’d slip away to visit him behind at the lower tables despite Catelyn’s careful watch.

She’d been testing Jon by stealing sips from his cups since their reunion, now that he was unreachable, impassive king. Sansa often berated her for this while Theon would flash a rare grin at her poor manners. But Jon never smiled anymore. There had been many days since Father’s death when she’d lived on the memory of Jon Snow’s smile. 

Arya shuddered as the wine burned its way down her throat. She set Jon’s goblet beside hers and prepared to meet that new, strangely thrilling heat behind his gaze.

Jon wasn’t in his chair when she dared to look up, however. 

The king had already fled.


	2. White Wolf

In taverns, the common folk whispered of Lyanna Stark’s shame, the secret babe Lord Ned had raised as his own. The truth hadn’t meant to become so widespread. None were certain when or how the rumor began, only now there was no taking it back. It hadn’t helped that as the King looked so like a Stark—more like Ned than his true-born sons—no one questioned who the father might be. They still didn’t, really, though the worst sort whispered the child had been Ned’s all along, born of incest like the Targaryen’s of old.

_If they only knew_ , he thought bitterly.

Jon was used to rumors, having lived with the privileges of a lord yet the contempt of a bastard all his life. He’d gone to the Wall to escape this, only the stigma remained. He had given _everything_ to the Watch, but when he finally chose to take a stand for his home, for _her_...

It had all been for her, the little sister who’d crawled into his bed every chance she could. For Arya, with her wolf’s blood, as Ned had called it. Arya, his best friend, and the only light in his life. Arya, whom he’d loved as long as he could remember. 

Not even Ygritte or Val, or his vows to the Watch had been enough to make him forget her. Not even death. 

Seeing Arya again had been painful. Her beauty and the smile she saved for him, all the little ways she tried to connect with him no matter how they’d changed… It made him angry—angry enough to consider giving into the need growing in his belly every day. He shouldn’t feel this way about his sister, no matter what Howland Reed had emerged from his swamp to declare otherwise. It didn’t matter how often the great houses— _his_ _father’s house_ —mingled bloodlines.

Arya was a princess and he would forever be the Bastard of Winterfell. And though he was drowning in the emptiness and the rot that grew in his soul, she would remain pure and blameless. His resolve in this was unshakeable.

Until moments like tonight, when his blood boiled from watching her suck the blood from her fingers. He’d nearly grabbed her wrist to lick her fingers himself, longed to crush his mouth to hers and drink any remaining traces from her sweet mouth. He’d fled before his instincts led him to do something unforgivable. 

Cat had done her damned best to make Jon aware of how _wrong_ he was, unnatural, and unwanted. Since he’d been resurrected by the Red Priestess, Jon’s control was not what it had been. He fought more violently, lusted more deeply, and yet so many natural _human_ emotions seemed to have died with him at Castle Black.

Jon fled to the godswood upon ordering the servants to keep all others out, determined not to return to his rooms until he’d run himself ragged.

No matter how hard he ran, the itch at the back of his neck remained. Proof of the monster Catelyn had seen lurking within him, hiding beneath his skin all along. 

_“The old gods blessed the Starks with the wolf’s blood long ago,”_ Old Nan used to say. 

He never expected her to sniff him out, let alone catch up to his desperate stride past the red leaves of the weirwood tree. 

Jon nearly tripped at the sight of her—easy loping grace and with a wildness in her silvery gaze he’d never seen before.

He didn’t dare slow down, too afraid of what he might still do now they were here, far from prying eyes.

But then Arya kept pace with him, beneath the light of a harvest moon, and Jon forgot to fear himself in her presence. 

Fear was replaced by euphoria, as they answered the call in their blood to _run_ and roam their territory. 

They fell upon a pile of red leaves and snow sometime later with matching grins on their faces. 

Heavy clouds of heat escaped their mouths as they caught their breaths in tandem, and their hearts gradually slowed. Twin smiles faded as they turned to face each other and a flash of something _other_ passed between silvery gazes—flashes of red and gold—there and gone in the blink of their eyes. 

Still, was enough to breathe together, despite the strange stirrings in their blood, no matter their secret fears. They had always chosen each other, even in this new, half-life they were living. 

Jon felt peace in knowing at least _she_ would always look at him as a man, and not a monster. 

Until Arya stood and pulled her tunic over her head.


	3. Dark Heart

“What are you doing?” His voice came as a deep growl that made Arya pause, fingers poised at her smallclothes.

She hadn’t been thinking, not with the high from being with him like this. It had stripped her defenses quicker than anything since she’d come home. The truth was, they’d often bathed here together as children. Running with him through the godswood tonight had been the single most freeing moment she’d felt since Father died on the way to King’s Landing and everything went to _shit_.

_He’s not the brother you remember._

For a moment, her grip tightened on her smallclothes.

_And I’m not the sister he remembers either._

Arya pushed her fears aside and finally said, “What’s it look like, stupid?” Then she unraveled her breast bindings. 

She wasn’t expecting to hear his strangled groan as she turned to face him. Arya’s thumbs halted at her breeches. She lifted her chin to meet his heavy gaze.

_You’re fucking this up, say something else,_ she thought in the face of the almost predatory way his gaze took in her bared flesh. 

“Jon?” Arya chewed on her bottom lip, then tried again. “I just thought—it’s been ages since we—and we never do anything together. Not since the war.”

Jon’s eyes squeezed shut, as though her words or the sight of her was too painful. 

Arya’s breath hitched as she added, “You don’t have to join me. I just thought... I’ve missed you, Jon.” She ducked her head and prepared to turn, grab her tunic, do _something_ —but then his hand was at her cheek, tilting her head to bring her gaze back to his.

His pupils glowed red in the moonlight, his nostrils flared as though he were drinking in her scent. Arya didn’t dare breathe as his forehead bore down against hers, though he made no move to close the distance between them. His breath fluttered over her cheeks as he confessed, “I’ve missed you too, little sister.”

It was all she’d wanted to hear, ever since she'd learned he _hadn’t_ died at Castle Black, not permanently. It was everything. 

Arya caught his wrist in her hand and pushed up on the tips of her toes, before carefully brushing her lips against Jon’s. 

They shuddered as that steadily building _other_ beneath their skins stirred again, closer to the surface. 

Jon took a staggering step back and beyond her reach. His gaze swept over her naked chest with such longing, and Arya gasped as understanding swept any lingering ignorance under the rug. 

He hadn’t been disgusted or outgrown her as she’d long feared since the war ended. No, he _wanted_ her. And wasn’t that what she desired? 

_Jon will want me if no one else does_ , she’d once claimed.

Another jolt of heat shot between her legs, her cooling flesh taut against the breeze as she recognized how much she wanted him. 

Before she could think better of it, Arya bent to remove her breeches, then stepped into the pool. Then she waited with bated breath and closed eyes, hoping she was right. 


	4. Beasts

Jon’s hands moved before his mind could catch up, untying laces and stripping tunic and leathers and boots until he stood naked in the godswood. 

Arya hadn’t turned since she entered the hot pool, though he still caught traces of her desire in the air.

_Gods_ … she had no clue. She couldn’t know, could she? 

How much he’d longed for her, ever since they'd fought side by side against the armies that tried to reclaim the North. In the aftermath of everything, how could he have told her what it did to him each time she’d sought his pallet in the tents? Her lean body had fit too perfectly against his broken and scarred form. 

He had kept his distance since then, as much as he could stand. He could hide the beast within so long as he kept her at his side but not _too_ near. No matter how many hunts he took with Ghost, nothing seemed to settle his cravings as much as her lips on his own. He needed more. 

Jon slid over the bank of snow and leaves and grimaced as the water scalded his scarred chest. He didn’t miss the way her silver gaze took him in. The tips of her breasts peeked above the pool and his desire for her flamed hotter. “Arya,” his voice cracked. “I have not been...myself since the Red Priestess brought me back.”

Her luminous gaze snapped quickly to his. “I know,” she whispered. As though she’d lived several lifetimes already. As though she understood death as well as he did. 

“Then you know what they say about me now,” he added, the growl back in his voice, the beast crawling to the surface. “That I’m a monster.”

Arya stood and slowly approached him. 

_Gods,_ she took his breath away. She had no idea how beautiful she was—sharp features and hardened muscles contrasted by soft eyes, dark hair escaping her loose braid. Her skin gleamed like starlight.

Jon closed his eyes as her hands trapped his bearded cheeks and drew his head down. “Arya,” he whispered her name, a broken plea. He was trembling from the need to touch her, his nose catching the lingering scent of blood at her fingertips. 

“I’m a monster too, Jon,” she said in the chilling tone she’d adopted since her return.

She still hadn’t told him where she’d gone. He hadn’t told her why he died...

Jon clenched his fists beneath the water to keep from reaching for her. “I am not the boy you remember, little sister.”

Arya rolled her eyes at the childish endearment, but her smile returned as she met his gaze. “Good thing, too. Because I don’t know if that boy would have looked at me the way you are now…” One of her hands slipped to the back of his neck, where the hairs stood on end and drew him closer. 

Jon held his breath and finally opened his eyes to find her too near—not close enough—and gave in to the need to thread his hands into her hair. “Arya,” he pled.

“You saw me, at supper,” she interrupted. “I’ve been...having these cravings.” Arya’s brow furrowed as she leaned in and sniffed at his neck.

Jon licked his lips and his voice was too hoarse to sound unaffected. “Blood?”

She nodded and her lips brushed against his skin as she took another step. “Among other things.”

Jon’s other hand gripped her waist, torn between pushing her away and pulling her flush against his building need. “Arya, please.”

Her grip on his neck and back tightened as she ran her tongue over the skin between his neck and shoulder.

Jon growled the moment her teeth replaced her lips at his neck and bit down.


	5. Mates

For weeks, Arya had been trying to reach him, to peer into the darkness he kept hidden from the world. It was a demon she knew too well. 

_What do we say to the god of death?_

War had taken its toll on all of them. Jon had _died_ for her, and when the Red Priestess brought him back to life, Death kept a part of her brother behind. Such was the price of dark magic. Arya had been curious to learn which piece Death had claimed. 

Now she wondered if Death had kept Jon's inhibitions. For the tenuous control he’d maintained shattered the moment her teeth dug into his flesh. 

Arya moaned as she tasted his skin on her tongue. The mad thought of what hisblood would taste like came and went as Jon drew her naked body flush against his. Then his teeth were bearing down on _her_ neck, and Arya lost all sense of self. 

His chest was littered in scars, the greatest over his heart. She dragged her nails over each scar while Jon licked his way up her neck to gently bite her earlobe. 

His rough hands drew her legs about his waist and then he was suddenly _there_ , pressing against her entrance without invading her. 

“Jon,” Arya gasped as she rolled her hips against him, seeking friction, as he kneaded her backside. One hand dragged up her back, his hands mapping her as surely as her kisses mapped his face. 

She pulled away briefly and nearly moaned to see his eyes shift from silver to the same blood red as Ghost’s. He pressed his forehead to hers, until she could see the reflection of her own golden irises— _just like Nymeria’s_ —and then he smiled. 

A breathless laugh escaped her as she saw the too-sharp points of his teeth. She brought her fingertips to graze over one canine tip and winced as it pierced her flesh. 

Jon’s pupils expanded until the red was overcome by black and his lips closed around her finger. His tongue smoothed the sting in a way Arya instantly felt between her legs. 

She reached between them until her hand wrapped around his cock and lined him up just so. 

Jon buried his face against her shoulder the moment he slipped between her slick folds.

Arya’s hands tangled in his hair as she sank onto him fully, and tugged his head back so she could meet his heated gaze.

Jon’s hand tightened at her backside and neck, lips parted as she leaned back.

“Arya,” he rasped as she sank back over him slowly.

His mouth tilted up in wonder and then his smile returned, filling his gaze with something beyond lust, as she rolled her hips over him, taking as much as she could with each thrust. 

It was sweet torture to move so slowly, a measure of bliss she’d never thought to find in this life.

Not after the countless lives she’d taken. Not after all they had done in the name of revenge. 

Jon was right, they _were_ monsters. Wargs or human, it didn’t matter. Because they were the same. 

Arya growled in triumph the moment Jon finally let go and began to chase his own relief. It was all she could do to hold on and meet his increasingly desperate thrusts. They moved together as though they’d done this a thousand times before. She wanted to do this with him forever. 

Jon held her close after they found their initial release. Neither let go for a long time after, even as the snows began to drift overhead and steam arise a hazy cloud around them.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

They would often meet in the godswood after that, but sometimes they slipped away from the castle and took Ghost and Nymeria to the Wolfswood. There they would race and hunt and mate. To the forest and their pack, to themselves, they were free to find refuge together—always together.

Winterfell was amazed by the sudden shift in their king’s demeanor. For whenever he was around Princess Arya, Jon Snow smiled.

And after Winter was over, and the king announced their betrothal, no one dared speak against them. 

The Starks would endure as they always had, and the North remembered long after the love between their king and queen.

Of how they rallied their people against the Lannisters and the Others and the Dragon Queen.

Of how no matter the might of their enemies, their power was greater together.

"After all," the smallfolk were known to say, "far better the monsters you know..."

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome friends to Jonyra Week 2020! When I first learned about this event, I knew I wanted to participate. With such fantastic prompts for Jonrya Week I decided to attempt to tackle the challenge of writing four short stories. (Short, as you can see, is HARD for me lol) Jonrya was a pair I sort of tripped over and discovered while hunting for Gendrya. As a huge fan of rare pairs, and the book verse, I quickly fell in love. So thank you ErickaB, LadyBee, missunderfoot and SoHereWeAre, for inspiring us with your fantastic works! Happy creating, friends :)


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